hms iron duke

Thursday, 29 September 2016

Riga, Latvia. 29 September. It is
a curious phrase to speak truth unto power. It is believed to have originated
in the US in the 1950s when a group of pacifist Quakers wrote a book seeking an
alternative to the Cold War. It has also become a virtual motto for the British
Civil Service. Now, regular readers of this blog will know that I am no
pacifist, but I am utterly committed to the maintenance of a just peace and as
committed to the defence of freedom. The purpose of this blog is not to
frustrate establishments or annoy elites (although the latter has an allure). States
need effective elites and establishments. My purpose is to help make them
better and to remind them that in democracies they are accountable to me the
citizen.

Back here in Riga I am at the
sharp-end of democracy, a place where the benefits and dangers of big power are
very clear. For Latvians the rise again of its noisy neighbour and the illiberal
‘big’ military power it eschews raises big questions about whether the liberal
states of the West are any longer capable of generating the necessary countervailing
big military power needed to defend Latvian freedom. However, the need for such
big power also raises a fundamental question that is at the heart of Europe’s,
and indeed America’s political malaise; big power is necessarily distant power
and distant power can be inherently anti-democratic.

This paradox was brought home to
me on the plane over here last night. For much of the journey I read pro-EU Nobel-prize
winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his new book “The Euro”. It is a
masterpiece and I will devote another coming blog to the many lessons Stiglitz
has for Europe’s failed elite from the failed single currency. However, what
struck me reading Stiglitz is the extent to which in the absence of proper
democratic oversight far from becoming more efficient Europe’s distant elites
became progressively and dangerously inefficient. For Stiglitz the Euro
disaster was caused by an ideologically-driven elite whose fervour for ever
more ‘Europe’ led to them dismissing the political and economic fundamentals
needed to make function a single currency across of continent of widely
differing polities, economies, languages and cultures.

Tonight I will have the honour of
addressing His Excellency the State President of Latvia Raimonds Vejonis,
together with an audience of assembled dignitaries on the defence of the
Alliance. My message will be blunt (as
it often is); in spite of the many other pressures on Western democracies the
first duty of the state to its people is their security and defence. That means
a Europe that once again begins to understand the first principles of big defence
power, how to afford it and apply it.

And yet the defence of the Alliance
is being undermined by dangerous disillusionment in publics across Europe and
the wider West. This is partly the inevitable consequence of eight years of
austerity (see Stiglitz) following the 2008 banking crash that was caused by
yet another unaccountable big power elite. It is also partly the result of a
failed ‘ideological’ Brussels elite (again see Stiglitz), and partly because
the drift towards mega power, as expressed through mega trade deals such as the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, has inexorably fuelled a popular
sense that power is inexorably moving away from the people leaving democracy a
fallen, rotting husk on the autumn lawn of power. Brexit was certainly driven
in part by this unease and the historical English distrust of unaccountable, distant
power.

Free from any real accountability
some ‘democratic’ elites have begun to do the same thing to their people as illiberal
states routinely do to theirs; treat them like children because they the elites
‘know best. Worse, bereft of influence
or power organised legitimate dissent has drifted away from the chambers of representative
democracy towards the new, extreme, and often illegitimate anarchism of social
media. A drift that has further weakened the bond between leaders and led in
democracies and too often enabled the likes of President Putin to insert an
alternative ‘truth (MH17), and to further undermine the social and political
cohesion vital to the defence of freedom.

But here’s the ultimate paradox;
in the world of the twenty-first century big power IS necessary. Indeed, the
very freedom of the individual to express dissent about big power is dependent
on effective big power. What is needed is for her/him to again feel a
connection with it. If the West’s political elites are to re-capture the trust
of the people which in a true democracy is the real foundation for the defence
of freedom then they must begin to treat their fellow citizens like grown-ups
and speak truth unto people. If not ‘populists’ and Putins will continue to
fill the vacuum of mistrust with their own very trumped-up truths, and the West
will continue its downward plunge into decline and division.

Therefore, what is desperately
needed is for Western elites to again conceive of big power differently to
illiberal big power. That means re-embracing democracy rather than treat it the
same way large companies treat tax; something to be circumvented, and if
possible avoided. In this dangerous age big power must speak big truth unto its
big people, but it must also learn to listen and mean it.

Monday, 26 September 2016

“Where do we stand? We are not members of the European
Defence Community, nor do we intend to be merged in a federal European system.
We feel we have a special relationship to both…we are with them, but not of
them”.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 11 May 1953.

Alphen,
Netherlands. 26 September. The defence implications of Brexit are enormous. It is
now three months since the Brexit referendum which saw the British people vote
52% to 48% to quit the EU. Since then, and in the absence of firm leadership in
London, a phoney war is being ‘fought’ into which all sorts of nonsense is being
injected. However, the defence aspect of Brexit has been by and large AWOL, both
in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Speaking in Riga, Latvia last week the need
for Europe’s strongest military democracy to remain fully committed to the
defence of Europe is as clear to me as ever. That commitment is in danger and here
is why.

Nasty Brexit: Last week Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned
that the, “V4 (Visegrad) countries will be uncompromising. Unless we feel a
guarantee that these people [V4 citizens in the UK] are equal, we will veto any
deal between the EU and Britain”. Whatever emollient British politicians and
diplomats might say if the V4 states (or others) did indeed veto a Brexit deal
the commitment of British public opinion to the defence of other European states
would be dangerously undermined. Mr Fico cannot expect to threaten Britain and still
expect British soldiers to possibly lay down their lives in defence of Slovakia
and others. A nasty Brexit would thus not only damage the EU, but also NATO, an
outcome that must be avoided at all costs. Remember, I called Brexit right!

Disarming Corbyn: The re-election on Saturday of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour
leader threatens to critically undermine Britain’s military power. The leader
of the main political opposition party is not only committed to unilateral
nuclear disarmament, he is also a committed pacifist. This weekend Corbyn said as
prime minister he would want to re-direct Britain’s armed forces towards ‘emergency
support’. In other words, if Corbyn ever gained power in London he would turn the
British armed forces into little more than a poorly-armed first aid force. An anti-NATO,
anti-American Prime Minister Corbyn would thus put the entire Western defence
architecture at risk at what is a dangerous time. There must be no complacency
about the threat Corbyn poses to European defence.

Rearming Barrons: Last week the leaked ‘haul down’ report of
recently-retired General Sir Richard Barrons warned that Britain’s armed forces
have become a ‘shop window’ force due to repeated ‘skimming’ of the defence
budget by Government. They look good but there is little of substance beyond
the image. He argued (and rightly) for the need to reinforce the front-line
with all the necessary support elements needed to ensure and enhance the ability of the force to project power projection, strike, and command coalitions and thus fulfil the
roles and tasks assigned to it. Europe’s future defence will be dependent to a significant extent on just such a British military capability.

Anglosphere: If the Corbyn disaster can be averted post-Brexit Britain
will inevitably form part of the American-centric defence Anglosphere (Yanksphere?),
itself at the hub of the coalescing World-Wide West. For Britain the move
towards Anglosphere is obvious. With the commissioning of the two new
super-carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth
and HMS Prince of Wales, the British
will find themselves integrated ever more deeply into the global power projection
order of strategy of an over-stretched US.

Eurosphere: The rest of Europe will have to move towards some
form of defence Eurosphere via tighter European defence integration. Indeed, as efforts
to save the Euro intensify the only way for the Eurozone states to make the
single currency work AND afford credible security and defence will be to radically re-order their defence effort and integrate more tightly. Such integration would not, at least in the first
instance, lead to the creation of a European Army, but rather a very tight
intergovernmental structure favoured by EU foreign and security policy supreme
Federica Mogherini in the EU’s recent Global
Strategy.

Implications for post-Brexit NATO: The Alliance would continue to be organised around an
American-led pillar and a European pillar. However, the US and Canada would be joined by the post-Brexit British, and by extension non-NATO strategic partners such as
Australia, and possibly even India and Japan. The Eurosphere would in time begin
to take on the appearance of an EU-centric European pillar of the Alliance.
This is what perhaps Jean-Clause Juncker was implying in his State of the European Union speech this month when he called
for NATO-friendly defence integration.

Implications for the Defence of Europe: Brexit
will thus lead to a new organising principle for the defence of Europe with
profound implications for several European states. France will be finally
forced to demonstrate just how much ‘Europe’ she is really willing to accept in
defence. The Nordic states will have to balance their traditional closeness to
Britain with their commitment to EU defence, as will the Netherlands. And
Germany will be forced to assume the mantle of European defence leadership that
for understandable reasons is still politically sensitive if not toxic in many
quarters of the Federal Republic. Italy?

Respectful Brexit: Britain’s
REAL commitment to the defence of Europe, the use of Britain’s armed forces as
an agent of influence not simply a function of defence, the cohesion of an
Alliance organised along new lines, and the commitment of the British people to
the defence of eastern and southern Europe, are all dependent to a significant
extent on a respectful Brexit.

Therefore, if there is a respectful and reasonable fulfilment
of the democratic desire of the British people to leave the EU, allied to a clear
British commitment to remain close friends and partners of the EU and its
member-states, then security and defence Brexit could even help reinvigorate
the security and defence of Europe. If not, then the deep divisions that ensue
will in turn ensure that no-one in democratic European ‘wins’ and everyone is
less secure.

Brexit
will mark the final and irrevocable end of Britain’s dalliance with European
defence integration, just as it will inevitably mark the start of a new era of European
defence integration. It is time to plan accordingly to ensure the Western Alliance
is organised for optimal effect in the Europe of tomorrow, not the Europe of yesterday.

Thursday, 22 September 2016

Riga. Latvia. 22
September. The news that United Russia,
the party President Putin backs won 54.2% of the vote in last week’s elections
for the Duma, Russia’s parliament, hardly
came as a great political surprise. United Russia now holds 343 of the 450
seats in the Duma, with the nearest
rivals having gained only 13% of the vote, whilst the ‘liberal’ failed to
surpass the 5% threshold and lost their last remaining seats. President Putin
really has kicked the 1990s into the long, long grass of Russian history. President
Putin also rules (or is that reigns) supreme and is thus free to further
cultivate the Russian strongman image he has carefully crafted both at home and
abroad. It is an illusion, but seen here from Latvia it is an exceptionally dangerous
illusion.

In reality Russia is
growing relatively weaker than most of its European and Western partner-adversaries
in every area that matters, save armed force. The facts speak for themselves.
According to the UN in 2016 Russia has an economy worth some $1.8 trillion,
which is about the same size of that of Canada, and slightly bigger than that
of Australia. This compares with a US economy worth $17.3 trillion, a German
economy worth $3.7 trillion, and a British economy worth $3 trillion. And yet,
SIPRI suggests that whilst the US in 2015 spent 3.3% of its gross domestic
product (GDP) on defence or $597 billion and the UK spent 2% or $55.5 billion,
Russia spent $66.4 billion or 5.4% of its GDP on defence. In fact, the true ‘burden’
of the Russian security state on the Russian economy is closer to, if not more
than, 10% of GDP.

Why is Putin committing
so much Russian taxpayer’s money to defence and other ‘security-related’ expenditure?
For many Russians ‘strength and greatness’ means a strongman leader backed up
by armed forces geared for aggression. For them history has taught that forcing
supplicant respect from neighbouring others is the only way Russia can be
secure. Consequently, Russia is an aggressive isolationist power that sees
itself and sets itself apart from contemporary European/Western ideas of mutual
interdependence. It is a profoundly Russian sense of isolationism twinned with exceptionalism
that runs deep in the Russian soul, reinforced by President Putin’ belief that
the disastrous Yeltsin years simply confirmed that closeness to the West simply
makes it easier and cheaper for the perfidious West to confound Russia.

However, there are other
factors driving President Putin’s over-mighty security state, not least the
sheer size of Russia. President Putin is determined to instil centralising political
discipline on regional governors and oligarchs in an enormous country that
covers 13 time zones, suffers from poor infrastructure, and in which
Vladivostok is roughly the same distance from Moscow as London is distant from
Chicago. In a conversation I had with Mikhail Khodorkovsky a couple of years
back I was struck by the extent to which even the illusion of threat instils a
fierce loyalty to Mother Russia.

If there is an illusion
of threat, there is also an illusion of power. Russia has simply been unable to
come to terms with the twenty-first century and instead reached for those two
great comforting balms beloved of many Russians; nostalgia and illusion.
President Putin appeals to a sense of false nostalgia that afflicts many
Russians outside relatively more liberal Moscow and St Petersburg. An idea that
somehow the Soviet Union was the ‘good old days’ when Russia had the respect of
the world, even its Western enemies. It is an illusion that President Putin is
brilliantly (for the moment) and ruthlessly fostering. It is also why Moscow
engages in lethal strategic grandstanding in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, even
if contemporary Russia simply lacks the power fundamentals to be a true twenty-first
century Great Power over the medium to longer-term.

This illusion of power
runs right through the Kremlin. In a recent interview with the BBC Russian
Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich warned that Brexit would weaken Europe
and that no individual European state could anymore influence world affairs
alone. Russia? For example, Britain is an intrinsically stronger power than
Russia so why does Moscow think weaker Russia can influence world affairs when
stronger Britain cannot? President Putin believes Russia is at its ‘strongest’
outside a rules-based world order and that Moscow’s very unpredictability is
Moscow’s strength.

Whilst I am a fierce
critic of President Putin I have a genuine respect for the man. Indeed, I find
it nauseating when European political leaders express shock at his actions. He
is not, and has never claimed to be, a woolly European liberal democrat. He is
a Russian nationalist who will act in what he sees as the Russian national interest
whatever that takes and we in the West had better come to terms with that. His
world-view is the product of Russia’s war-winning, land-grabbing sacrifice in
World War Two which fashioned a love of country from the dark, dark crucible of
destruction. In other words, President Putin believes he IS Russia and that is
all the political legitimacy he needs. He is not alone in this belief. For
several years I educated Russian officers and diplomats at the Geneva Centre
for Security Policy and I never ceased to be impressed by their love of country,
their profound belief in Mother Russia, and their determination to defend her.

The Russians have a
saying, “umom Rosiya neponjat” or one can never understand Russia. For the sake of friends and allies such as
Latvia the West must stop trying to look at President Putin through ‘why can’t
he be likes us’ Western eyes and quickly. The very disconnect between Russia’s
weak power fundamentals and Russia’s vaunting power ambition that is driving
Russian policy means Russia’s power illusion is as much a danger to itself as
to its neighbouring others. Unless President Putin changes course Russia will
again sink under the burden over its own over-securitized insecurity. The reckoning
may take a little longer to arrive than some Western commentators believe
because Russians are willing to sacrifice longer for what they believe to be Russian
‘greatness’ than most ‘soft’ Westerners. However, catastrophe will come.

President Putin is hoping
that by then he will have re-established Russian influence over its near-abroad
to such an extent that his place in Russian history will be assured, and that
whatever test Russia must ultimately face durable Russians will outlast weak
Westerners. In preparing the ground for this great ‘test’ of strength President
Putin sees himself as the natural heir of Peter the Great. However, President
Putin should remember that the use of the suffix ‘Great’ was not simply because
Tsar Peter understood power. He also understood that to make Russia a real eighteenth
century Great Power he had to transform Russia from a fifteenth century
state.

If President Putin is to
make Russia a real twenty-first century Great Power then he will have to
transform Russia from a twentieth century state. At present there is no sign he
understands that precisely because he has failed to reform, which is precisely
because he has failed to conquer himself and his many prejudices about Russia
and the ‘other’. Yes, much of President Putin’s power is but an illusion, but when
viewed from here in Latvia it is a very real and a very dangerous illusion.

Monday, 19 September 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 19
September. Big wars involving democracies usually start for three reasons;
disarmament, distraction, and denial. The West today suffers from all three
afflictions. The leaking of the so-called ‘haul down’ report of General Sir
Richard Barrons, the former commander of Britain’s Joint Force Command, is simply
the latest warning from a senior commander. Some years ago I worked briefly
with Barrons. I have rarely met a more thinking or erudite officer.

In an interview with The Times of today Barrons warns that Britain
and NATO have no effective plan for defending Europe from a Russian attack
because of splits within the Alliance. Russia, he says, could deploy tens of
thousands of troops into NATO territory within 48 hours whilst it would take
months for the Alliance to do the same thing. The result; “…some land and
control of airspace and territorial waters could be lost before NATO 28 member
states had even agreed to respond”.

Disarmament:
The July NATO Warsaw Summit Declaration states; “Since Wales we have turned a
corner. Collectively, Allies’ defence expenditures have increased for the first
time since 2009. In just two years, a majority of Allies have halted or
reversed declines in defence spending in real terms”. This statement might be right
in fact, but it is complete nonsense in reality. It is not absolute power that is
critical in any given military balance of power, but relative power. In
relative terms too many NATO nations continue to disarm relatively to Russia,
which is still busting its economy to rearm. Indeed, what really worries me is
the combination of a weak Russian economy crippled further by massive defence
investments by an autocratic regime that seems to claim political legitimacy
from what is a policy that can only end in disaster.

Distraction: Reading the outputs from last week’s EU informal
Bratislava summit I became very concerned. Apparently. Britain is now the
enemy of the EU and many of its member-states. And yet, many of those same EU
(and NATO) states routinely expect British soldiers to lay down their lives in
their defence. Let me be clear; if in the Brexit negotiations the EU and its
members attempt to punish the British people for an act of democracy it will
weaken the commitment of Europe’s strongest democratic military power to the
defence of Europe. Cut the stupidity, and stop turning Brexit into what is an
almighty strategic distraction. Fight Britain,
Europe loses.

Denial:
In a recent exchange with the former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski I
challenged Poles to confront the myth that Britain and France betrayed Poland
in September 1939. Incompetence yes, betrayal no. The fact that both countries declared war on Nazi Germany on
3 September and fought a world war that ended them as world powers was
proof that London and Paris were willing to honour their commitment to Poland.
Moreover, I argued, if one looked at the deployment of German forces on 1 September,
1939 there was precious little else Britain and France could have done. The Wehrmacht
may have had some sixty divisions on the Polish border before the invasion, but it had forty-six divisions on their western border reinforced by the Westwall
(or Siegfried line) at its very strongest.

However, the Poles also
have a point. Britain and France did not simply offer ‘commitments’, they
offered solemn treaty guarantees for Poland’s defence before the conflict, and ‘guarantees’
of action once the war began. Neither happened. Worse, the real power in the
West at the time, the United States, had retreated into isolationism. The
result was that when the unthinkable happened the Western democracies were
forced to trade the space of their allies for the time to ultimately defeat the
enemy.

Which brings me to a
fourth ‘D’; deterrence. Barrons is
making essentially the same point that was made recently by NATO’s former No.2
soldier General Sir Richard Shirreff in his excellent book 2017: The Coming War with Russia. Now, I
am not equating Putin’s Russia with Nazi Germany because I have too much
respect for Russians and their sacrifice in World War Two to do that. However,
the warning from Barrons, Shirreff, me and others is clear; when faced with
aggressive, unpredictable, nationalist, autocratic regimes that seek a critical military advantage at a place and time of their choosing one
has no choice but to prepare for the worst. In other words, wishful thinking
does not make for sound deterrence.

NATO's Warsaw plan is to
base 1000 troops in each of the three Baltic States. Barrons says this of the
plan; “There is no force behind it, or plans or resilience…It is an indication
of how, at this stage in our history, I think many people have lost sight of
what a credible military force is and requires. They think a little bit of
posing or a light force constitutes enough and it isn’t”. So, just how many
troops does Russia have right at this moment in the Western military oblast directly
adjacent to the Baltic States? Four corps or 120,000 troops.

As an Oxford historian
who has studied and written at length about the causes of both World War One
and World War Two I have been, and I am, increasingly worried that an unstable Russia
could at some point be unable to resist the opportunity to exploit an
overwhelming local advantage to take Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and present
the West with a nuclear-backed fait accompli. Many of you out there will think
that is unthinkable. You are in denial. It really is now thinkable. My mission,
and that of Sir Richard, is to ensure that never happens.

World War Two happened
because of Adolf Hitler. However, it also happened because like so many of the
leaders of today’s Western democracies Britain and France were for too long in denial
about the extent and the scope of the threats to the borders of democratic
Europe. What to do about it? Political leaders must finally face hard reality
and begin the complete and proper overhaul of NATO defence and deterrence so that defensive forces properly deter offensive forces. This
means going far beyond the Warsaw window-dressing where getting the language agreed
for the Declaration was more important than defending Europe. Nothing less than the strategic renovation of
the Alliance is needed. To that end, I will co-lead a major project in the
coming months with retired US General John Allen. Will the politicians listen? They
should because if they don’t THEN history really might be revisited…and on
their watch.

Thursday, 15 September 2016

“Victory
in this war will belong to the belligerent who is the first to put a cannon on
a vehicle capable of moving on all kinds of terrain”.

Colonel
Jean-Baptiste Estienne, 24 August, 1914

Alphen, Netherlands. 15
September. At 0515 hours on the morning of 15 September, 1916 at Flens
Courcelette in the Somme battlefield the air was rent by a sound new to the
battlefield. The engines of 32, 29 ton British Mark I tanks of the Guards
Division powered up to a crescendo before beginning their lumbering 3mph/4kph
advance towards the German trenches. Seven tanks immediately broke down. The sight of 25 of these ‘monsters’ suddenly appearing out of the
early autumn fog in which the Somme valley was swathed led some German troops to panic. However, as one would expect of the German Army, most did not.
Although the British tanks, supported haphazardly by infantry, made some
limited, initial gains once the shock had worn off the inevitable German counter-attacks
negated much of the early advance.

Equally, for all that the attack
failed to make the hoped for break-through this day a century ago marks the beginning
of a new phase in manoeuvre warfare and the search for the right mix of speed,
armour, firepower and effective strategic and tactical application of the tank that
continues to this day. Indeed, even a quick glance would confirm the link
between the caterpillar-tracked Mark I tank of 1916, and the advanced main
battle tank of today.

One irony of the first
British tanks was that they had been inspired by naval thinking of the time. First
Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was behind the idea of a ‘landship’, and
even to this day ‘tankers’ use nautical terms such as ‘turret’ and ‘hatch’ etc. Indeed, the only reason they are called 'tanks' is that to mask their true purpose the
workers at the agricultural machinery manufacturers in Lincoln where the Mark I
was being developed were told they were ‘water tanks’ destined for Mesopotamia.

The problem with the Mark
I was reliability. It had been originally intended that 59 tanks would take
part in operations on 15 September, but 27 of the tanks were non-operational.
This was mainly due to problems with their experimental 105 bhp
Foster-Daimler-Knight engines. Of the 25 tanks which made it into action they
were divided into ‘male’ tanks, armed with two quick-firing 6 pound Hotchkiss
cannons, and ‘female’ tanks armed with four Vickers .303 calibre machine guns.

Although the first use of
tanks in action by the British undoubtedly came as a complete surprise to the
Germans several countries were developing similar systems at the time. Indeed,
perhaps the first real tank was developed not by the British but by Austria-Hungary,
although Vienna’s ‘tank’ never made it beyond the prototype stage.

It was not until April
1918 that the first tank-on-tank battle took place at the Second Battle of
Villiers-Bretonneux when three British Mark V tanks encountered three enormous
German A7V tanks, each with a crew of 30. In what proved to be perhaps the
slowest battle in modern military history it was eventually the solitary
British ‘male’ tank which successfully struck its German enemy and forced the
A7Vs to withdraw.

However, it was dawn on 8
August, 1918 at the Battle of Amiens that the tank began to be used to real
effect. One of the most innovative of British commanders General Sir Henry
Rawlinson had commanded Fourth Army at the Somme and had seen the potential of
the tank. On what German commander General Erich Ludendorff called ‘the black
day of the German Army” Rawlinson for the first time used air power, infantry
and massed tanks in close order to punch a hole through the defences of
over-extended German forces. What followed thereafter was a fighting German
retreat that would continue to the Armistice in November 1918. The tank had
come of age.

It was German
commanders such as Guderian and Rommel, and Russian thinkers such as Tukhachevsky,
who saw the real potential of the tank during the interbellum and properly exploited Rawlinson’s August 1918
lessons. The result was the Blitzkrieg tactics unleashed by Nazi Germany on Poland
in 1939, France and the Low Countries in 1940, and on the Soviet Union in 1941.
In the inter-war years the British once again retreated behind the wall of the
Royal Navy, whilst the French went down the tactical dead-end of that ultimate
World War One trench, the Maginot Line. The idea of static defence-in-depth had
by and large been abandoned by the Germans as a concept of warfare as early as 1918 with the destruction of the Hindenburg Line.

Perhaps it is best to
leave the last word on the tank action at Flers Courcelette to Winston
Churchill. “My poor ‘land battleships’ have been let off prematurely on a petty
scale…This priceless conception, containing, if used in its integrity and on a
sufficient scale, the certainty of a great and brilliant victory, was revealed
to the Germans for the mere purpose of taking a few ruined villages”.

Monday, 12 September 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 12
September. On Friday I had the distinct honour of addressing Airbus senior
management at a swanky resort outside Geneva on European security and the need
for a return to the principles of worst-case planning. The speech was against a
backdrop of more European defence wishful-thinking last week from Jean-Claude
Juncker and Federica Mogherini as they again try to use defence to counter
Brexit without actually enhancing European defence. As ever with such meetings
some of the most important conversations were informal. Perhaps the most
important idea that emerged for me was the need for a new defence innovation partnership
in Europe.

What do I mean by that?
The July NATO Wales Summit Declaration referred to some modest increase in European
defence expenditure in 2016. However, it is very modest and still bears little
or no relation to the investment needed to render deterrence and defence credible,
let alone maintain the ability to project power efficiently and effectively
with the Americans. Worse, Jean-Claude Juncker only called for a more
integrated EU ‘defence’ to promote his federalist agenda, whilst the more
pragmatic Mogherini wants to see if Britain’s departure from the EU could lead
to a more efficient investment by EU member-states in an EU-centric security
and defence effort.

The problem with all such
pronouncements is that they all assume the same essential defence ‘contract’
with the European defence and technological industrial base (EDTIB). In my
evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee late last year I
highlighted the appalling waste of taxpayer’s money this ‘contract’ creates
with Europeans getting far too little return on their defence investment.

The problem is that much
of Europe’s defence investment has little to do with defence. Rather, it is a
way a) maintain a taxpayer’s subsidy to keep inefficient defence industries in
business; b) preserve a hi-tech research base when in fact the civilian sector
is often far ahead; c) preserve jobs in key political constituencies; or d) a
combination of all of the above. This shameful waste of taxpayer’s money is
often compounded by the pretence that competition takes place between Europe’s
few big defence contractors for the relatively few ‘big ticket’ defence
projects on offer. In fact, such is the byzantine relationship between
government and defence industries in most European countries that false competition
is usually simply a metaphor for government trying to shift the risk of defence
innovation onto the manufacturer and then the manufacturer claiming the cost
back via cost overruns. Inevitably, it is the taxpayer who ends up footing the
often exorbitant bill, although on some other politician’s watch.

There have been many
attempts to overcome these problems but all have failed, for various by and
large political reasons. The European Defence Agency being the most obvious of
these failures through no particular fault of its own. As a consequence there
are still too many metal-bashing defence industries in Europe bashing metal on
very similar bits of over-priced, under-performing bits of defence metal. Production runs are simply not long enough nor
big enough to produce the necessary economies of scale. Or, the inflated cost
of such platforms are made worse by what I call the Christmas Tree effect – the
hanging of too many systems onto platforms rendering both the platform and the
system sub-optimal because systems integration is rendered impossible by
governments constantly changing the requirement.

What is needed is a new
European Defence Innovation Partnership, which would necessarily include the
post-Brexit Brits, with the whole idea of false competition needs to be
abandoned. Now, I am not suggesting a return to the appallingly wasteful ‘cost
plus’ or ‘juste retour‘models of partnership. Nor am I suggesting any more
Smart Procurement nonsense by which governments mortgage their defence future
by delaying fronting up to the cost of defence present.

To make such a
partnership reality companies like Airbus, which struck me as surprisingly
nimble by defence-industrial standards, need to form a standing partnership
with other big European prime defence contractors, such as EADS, Thales, and Bae
Systems. Having formed such an alliance they need to be brought into
discussions about defence requirement far earlier in the in planning/political
cycle than is the case today so that a new balance can be struck between
defence capability and defence affordability. Thereafter, the entire
industrial/service supply chain needs to be exploited, not just the bespoke
defence supply chain. And, where possible, as much hardware and software as
possible bought off the shelf.

Take the new British
super-carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth
and HMS Prince of Wales. Much of the
press focus is on what many see as the inflated cost of the two ships at £6bn.
The reason for that is simple; at the outset of the project politicians and
businessmen told porky pies to Parliament about the cost of the project and how
long it would take to realise. If they had told the truth the carriers would
have been sunk at birth.

In fact, the construction
of the two carriers by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance is a story of innovation
and points to the future. The ships were built in sections across the UK, with
the each section then floated on barges to Rosyth where they were assembled. To
realise the project the prime contractors Bae Systems and Thales UK had to make
use of much existing expertise from the declining North Sea oil industry and
exploit a much wider supply chain than has been traditionally the case for such
projects. This helped lead to the Defence Growth Partnership and attempts by
the British to generate much more defence capability for each pound spent.

However, if ever a real
Defence Innovation Partnership is to be realised politicians must begin to
answer a question they have been dodging since the end of the Cold War; what
does the defence of Europe require, not how much defence of Europe can we
afford.

Thursday, 8 September 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 8
September. “The UK and U.S. are determined to play our part in ensuring that
our peacekeepers are up to the task of protecting civilians, abiding by the rule
of law, and honouring the UN principles of humanity, impartiality and
independence”. This was the central message from US Secretary of Defense Ashton
Carter and British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon in a piece in Today’s Times.
The piece was written on the occasion of the “UN Peacekeeping Defence
Ministerial” which Fallon will today host in London. The meeting begs a critical
question that neither Carter nor Fallon were willing to address: can the West any
longer undertake both peacekeeping and warfighting missions?

The facts. As of 30 June,
2016 there were 16 UN peacekeeping missions led by the Department for
Peacekeeping Operations with 88,221 troops deployed from 123 countries, plus
police and other support staff. Whilst Western forces provide important specialised
support only some 5000 or 5% of UN peacekeepers actually come from the West.

The big elephant in today’s
elegant Lancaster House room will be thus: how can ever-shrinking Western
forces engage in ever more missions across an ever more demanding conflict
spectrum demanding in turn ever more tasks and skills? Take the U.S. and UK;
sequestration has critically undermined the ability of Washington to undertake
longer-term force planning as modernisation has had to be sacrificed for
readiness. Whilst on paper the US Army appears strong with some 450,000 active
duty personnel, plus a US Marines Corps of 180,000 personnel, 40,000 troops are
to be cut by the end of 2017. The
British cut their tiny regular army down to 82,500 from over 104,000 in the
2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Worse, problems with recruiting means the
regular force is now only some 78000 strong, whilst the much vaunted ‘Reserve
Army’ is finding it hard to recruit the 30,000 troops to ‘compensate’ for
repeated cuts to the front-line force, which has seen limited modernisation too
often come at the expense of readiness.

Michael Fallon said this
morning that Western engagement in UN peacekeeping was vital to prevent weak
states collapsing and consequent hyper-migration and terrorism. Back in the
1990s it might have been possible for Western forces to engage exclusively in
peace-making and peacekeeping missions because in a relatively permissive post-Cold
War strategic environment the idea of major war had been banished. However, as
I will say in a major speech I will be giving in Geneva tomorrow, those days
are long gone.

If NATO is to
successfully adopt what it calls a “360 degree approach” not only will Alliance
forces need to look simultaneously east, west, south north, up and down, if
they are to be credible ‘deterrers’ and defenders they will also be called upon
to operate to effect throughout the conflict spectrum from low-end peacekeeping,
to peace-enforcement, engaged counter-terrorism operations AND prepare for a
possible future major war. That will
mean large, tightly-interoperable forces able to operate to effect across the
seven domains of twenty-first century warfare – air, sea, land, cyber, space,
information, and knowledge.

Colonel J.F.C. Fuller,
the great British military-strategic thinker said that all forms of warfare
involve manoeuvre and attrition. At the lower end of the spectrum even
relatively ‘permissive’ operations demand a large amount of manpower. As such
peacekeeping operations are not ‘warfare-lite’, as many Western (particularly
European) politicians like to pretend. As Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have
demonstrated preventing a weak state tip into terrorism and migration-fuelling anarchy
demands a grand strategic campaign involving the application of huge forces and
resources over time and distance.

So, if the Alliance is to
credibly defend Poland and the Baltic States, which is my firm commitment, NATO
forces must also be ready to prevent a possible war with Russian forces, a strategic hybrid war with a nasty nuclear tinge. That means the forward deployment
of NATO forces in sufficient strength and of sufficient quality, and with the demonstrable ability to reinforce quickly, overseen by crystal clear political will and deft
decision-making, and underpinned by resilient societies.

So, can the West peacekeep
and warfight? At present no. The Americans lack sufficient mass of force to do
both, whilst the Europeans lack both mass and manoeuvre forces in anything like
the strength, or indeed at the level of necessary military capability and capacity.

On the BBC this morning Michael
Fallon was not even asked this pivotal question. Rather, after announcing 100
more British soldiers will go to the South Sudan, he then retreated into the
now usual strategy-defying politically-correct guff about how important it is to
get more women involved in peacekeeping, and to prevent sexual abuse by UN
peacekeepers. Yes, these are important topics.
However, they are also part of a displacement strategy by politicians to
avoid the real issue; sending 100 more British troops to peace-keep in South
Sudan is 100 less British troops to defend the Baltic States. So small are
European forces in particular that such choices really are these days part of a zero sum game.

If the West wants to peace-keep and war-fight seriously it will need to first act as the West and aggregate all of its forces and much of its effort. That means
more and far more, far better forces than the West’s possesses today. For the
democracies to suggest otherwise is to simply engage in yet more 1930s-echoing reality-appeasing
political guff. The result of such guff is all too apparent in Europe's armed forces today; small forces with a little bit of everything, but not much of
anything.

Monday, 5 September 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 5
September. Is the G20 the real Security Council? Over the past two days the heads
of state and government of the G20 (Group of Twenty) top world economies met in
Hangzhou in China to discuss a whole host of weighty topics. It is certainly
interesting how the G20 seems to be steadily eclipsing both the Western-weighted
G8 and the UN Security Council as the place where real power meets.

It is also worth stating just
which states are in Hangzhou: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China,
France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UK and US, plus (of course!!!!) the EU. This
year the likes of Egypt, Spain and Singapore were also invited, along with the
leaders of leading regional powers, together with a host of institutions.

Whilst the agenda was essentially
economic in flavour the context was doggedly and decidedly about strategy and
power. And, whilst the states represented come from all the world’s flashpoints
it is also clear to see three emerging twenty-first century strategic groups;
the World-Wide West, the Illiberal Great Powers, and the New Non-Aligned. In a sense G20 more than
any other forum captures the way of the world in 2016; a strange, dangerous and
unpredictable world of power, weakness and informality. It is a rapidly changing
world in which state power matters more than ever, but in which there are also
a whole host of weak and failing states. It is a world in which international institutions
proliferate, but their influence over world events appears to be failing. It is
a world in states dominate, but are challenged by the anti-state more than ever
before.

Take the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) which, since its 1945 founding and for all its many
travails, has remained the formal focus of state power interaction, even during
the Cold War. Indeed, it was the UNSC which during the Cold War provided the
theatre for much dramatic confrontation between the West and the former Soviet
bloc. However, even though it appeared paralysed for many years the very
bipolar nature of the Cold War made it possible for institutional conflict
resolution to play an important part in its eventual resolution.

The world today is
decidedly multipolar with institutions not only paralysed but fractured by many
different disputes with no dominant state or bloc, not even the United States.
Indeed, one notable aspect of this G20 were the divisions within the West,
which would have been noted by all others present, particularly Presidents
Putin and Xi. The strange sight of President Obama both reaffirming the ‘Special
Relationship’ with Theresa May’s Brexit Britain and then dissing it was
indicative of a new age in which power relationships even between close allies
are as fluid as at any time since 1939.

That strategic fluidity ran
through the G20 and with it the danger that ‘might’ will progressively replace ‘right’
as the shaping force of twenty-first century geopolitics. In a fluid strategic
environment the ability of a state to decide and act quickly is at a premium,
whilst multilateral institutions are rendered ponderous and reactive.

The whole purpose of post-1945
institutional architecture was to embed states in institutions to prevent
extreme state action. However, be it China’s claims to much of the East and
South China Seas, Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, or the West’s
selective interpretation of UN Security Council resolutions over the past twenty-five
years, it is clear why formal international relations and the 1945
institutional construct is beginning to fail.

Hence G20. Since its
founding in 1999 the G20 has steadily become the forum for real power. Naturally,
the architects of the G20 would beg to differ. They would claim that as a place
where power can talk G20 reinforces rather than diminishes institutional
international relations. However, in much the same way as informal coalitions
within alliances eventually threaten to destroy said alliances, regimes such as
G20, reflective of power as they are, and indeed where power actually resides,
over time inevitably eclipse and then destroy formal international institutions.

Therefore, if one places
this week’s G20 in its rightful strategic context one sees a world teetering on
the brink between might and right. Much like prior to World War One it is a
world in which big state power is increasingly eloquent. This means that even
if a powerful state defects from a set of accepted rules and norms, and even if
it might be condemned for so doing, its very power means that it could not be
punished. There simply would not be sufficient countervailing power to exact punishment,
nor sufficient willingness on the part of other states to join together to re-impose
agreed norms, precisely for fear of the power of the defecting state.

So, is the G20 the real
Security Council? No, because such a council is where accepted norms and rules
are applied. However, it is a ‘regime’ in which true power resides. And, as
Thomas Hobbes once warned, “Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of
use to secure a man at all. The bonds of words are too weak to bridle man’s
ambition, avarice, anger, and other ambitions, without the fear of some
coercive power”.

Forget the formal agenda
of the G20. The real agenda in Hangzhou concerned power, change, who is up…and
who is going down.

Friday, 2 September 2016

Alphen,
Netherlands. 2 September. This summer I successfully undertook three major projects. First,
under the command of the Supreme Authority here I decorated a bedroom. Second,
working closely with a much esteemed friend and colleague I finished a new
book. Third, I constructed a pond in my back garden. The pond is about the size
of Jean-Claude Juncker’s Luxembourg, although not as wet, and comes complete
with my homage to the Dutch mountains (together with mountain spring and
utterly naff mountain stream). Complex projects all; but with a bit of
thinking, planning and a lot of muscle, success! In other words, if one puts
one’s mind to something one can achieve a lot.

Which brings me to
Brexit. This week Prime Minister May held an ‘at home away day’ for ministers
at her official posh country residence Chequers to discuss how to make Brexit
happen. As she talked the former Head of the Civil Service Lord Gus O’Donnell
(aka G.O.D) was opining in the media that the collapse of the Roman Empire was
as nothing compared with the travails of Brexit, or words to that effect. So, having endured dire warnings about
pending economic Armageddon if Britain left the economically-destitute EU, I am
now told by G.O.D. that extricating Britain from the EU will be the
most difficult political and legal exercise in recorded history. How so and why
so?

On the face of it
G.O.D’s warnings look like yet another attempt by die-hard Remainers to delay
Brexit in the hope that the British people will face up to their ‘folly’ and
cancel out 23rd June with a new referendum expressing ever-dying
love for Project Europe and those
lovely people in Brussels. ‘Fraid not! All the latest opinion polls show that
same majority for Brexit as set Britain on this path back in June.

One of the
arguments made by G.O.D. is that simply disentangling British law from EU law will
be a gargantuan task. Why? What's the rush? After Article 50 is
eventually triggered a process will begin that will take many years during which all existing laws will be reviewed. Some of the laws will be good,
some indifferent, and some bad but there need be no rush to change laws. What
matters is that one starts with the current corpus of statutes and the review
process.

Another of the
arguments is that Britain now lacks the expertise to conduct trade
negotiations. Surely, if necessary, London can buy in such expertise until
Britain’s own house-trained trade negotiators are up to speed? Again, there
would appear to be no particular need for haste. First, Britain’s future
trading relationship with the EU will be a political decision not a technical
one. What really matters is that Britain is the world’s fifth biggest and
Europe’s second biggest economy. Power is what dictates such arrangements, not
technical attribute. Second, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
is fast falling apart. Obama wanted Britain in the EU to help save it. Obama is
dead political meat.

Which brings me to
the real problem with Brexit; the British political class. It is a problem that
has dogged Britain for years and which explains why Britain never actually
behaves these days as the world’s fifth largest economy or Europe’s leading
military power. Rather, much of the British political elite believe Britain
to be a small wind-swept island off the West coast of Europe. Worse, it is are
fundamentally split about the real issue at the heart of Brexit – EU trade versus
EU immigration.

The evidence
suggests a majority of those who voted for Brexit did so in the belief that
Britain would regain ‘control’ over its borders, i.e. immigration. The problem for them is that whilst the referendum was an
exercise in direct democracy it is the denizens
of representative democracy who will control much of the process in Government and/or the House of Commons. A majority of them put access to the
EU single market above control over immigration. Squaring this British circle
could prove impossible.

Which brings me to the political problem of Brexit. First, the Conservative Party is
split, the Labour Party is off into the fantasy realm of the red fairies, the
Scottish Neverendum Party simply wants to destroy Britain, and the rest of them
are led by a bunch of political nonentities. Second, unless the political class
really believe in Britain’s ‘independent’ future London’s negotiating position
will be weak from day one. Third, unless Britain’s political class show
sufficient unity of effort and purpose in agreeing a vision of Brexit Britain’s
negotiators will soon find themselves in an impossible position as London’s ‘red
lines’ wobble all over the place. Fourth, unless the political class commit to
the long-term and do not seek to change aspects of Brexit the civil service,
excellent though it is at saving Britain from its politicians, will be simply unable
to work its customary magic, G.O.D. or no G.O.D.

Prime Minister May
has called for a “unique” deal for Britain which would see only those with a
guaranteed job allowed to enter Britain from the EU, in return for full British
access to the Single Market, including so-called ‘passporting rights’ for
Britain’s financial services. If Brexit is to be made to work then both the
British people and their politicians will have to confront the stark reality
that is staring them in the face; free trade with the EU or controls on EU immigration.
They are unlikely to get both.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.